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I'm less concerned with the professional ethics than with the light this shed on Satsuki as a mother, and her relationship with her daughter.

Ohanamama transcended her initial status as a pitiful ogre for me here - she came off as a believable and complex person. I won't go so far as to call her likeable, but I believe she was empathetic. Her message to her daughter was a cynical one, but I one I think she truly believed - this is what adults do to make a living. This is what I did to put food on your table (that you cooked, admittedly) for 16 years. This is how I put a roof over your head. And in a strange way, I thought her refusal to be shamed into playing into Ohana's fantasy was refreshing and even admirable - barely. I may not agree with her POV on the review, but from her perspective I think she was trying to tell her daughter that this is how the real world is - and it'll be less painful for you to learn the lesson now. She's still not a very good Mom, but at least now I can understand who she is as a person - more or less. In terms of her "moonlight run" from the first ep, well - that's one I still consider pretty unforgivable.

So they say they lied at the time to get rid of Ohana. Or hey, they say her work was to make real Japanese out of the reviewers' (those who went there) notes.

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Plus, she's not that great of an employee to have around (you know, eloping for a few months and all that, she's not a freelancer, so they expect her to show up at work even if she does most of it through computer and internet), so it's possible that she's now being used up for all her worth to be thrown aside later.

As I said, it's not a matter of how good or bad she is as an employee (about which I don't really want to speculate). It would be extremely bad for them to bow to external pressure so publicly.

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But sure, they could go that route. And the inns could point out how suspicious it is that despite coming in several different flavours (Kissuisou, traditional cosiness. Fukuya, modern grandeur.) none seemed get a good score.

So they say the inns all suck at the various things they do. What of it?

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Instead of going through the trouble of lying about it, Satsuki's bosses could agree to fire her, and does so but cites her elopement as the reason instead, and presto! They get integrity back. They get to keep their bribes. They make the slighted inns happy. They don't have a flaky journalist who eloped on them on their staff.

That's even more trouble than lying. Lying's easy. It's pretty much their day-job. It also wouldn't satisfy the inns or help them in any way. Vindication is all well and good, but the only one who'd care would be Ohana.

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I just don't think that the bosses will go up to bat for Satsuki if they risk having the bribes come to light. The magazine would barely survive widespread suspicion of libel, if they present themselves as a professional reviewing magazine.

I'm sure the "bribes" are a matter of public record, all nice and legal. (Either advertising contracts or corporate kinship.) Good luck proving anything from that.

Was she right or wrong? The most striking line in their entire conversation was her own admission that she had been doing things she's hated for years, and it's these things she hated that kept her working to bring up Ohana. A simple xplanation should suffice, that she indeed continued with a job she hated just to raise her daughter. It put food on the table, kept a roof on their heads, and kept Ohana in school. Does it of course justify her actions? True enough she did it under the orders of her superiors, so the issue itself becomes one of personal ethics over economic reality. In a way, one could deduce that she had sacrificed any sort of principle she had because she had to follow her bosses, who clearly have a vested interest in this.

Right and wrong... the line is never as clear or black and white as we may like. In a way she was right, in a way she was wrong. She believed she had to follow orders because it was necessary, but at the same time had to sacrifice some integrity to get it done.

To put things as blunt and simple as I can, I hate her guts. For multiple reasons. From the very beginning of the series, it was pretty clear that she was barely involved in raising Ohana if at all. This latest ep probably showed what raising a child meant for her: putting a roof over their heads and food on the table with the money she earns, regardless of how she earns them. But the truth is, that's only a very, very small part of what it means. Just because she's able to provide those things for Ohana doesn't mean she should focus entirely on providing them, but provide them she did, and up to this stage, one can say she was barely involved in raising Ohana.

However, she dumped her at her grandmother's to elope with a guy she split up with possibly weeks later to return to her normal life. Did she bother to tell her daughter about this? Not at all. She abandoned her and got on with her life. She might argue that she knew her grandmother would force Ohana to work for a living to show her how this is the world she has to live in, but the way she went about it is just simply wrong. She never said a word to Ohana after she went to Kissuiso. To me, that shows more that she just doesn't care for her at all, and what she was doing for a living was more for herself, and Ohana's presence to do the housework was more of a convenience because it allowed her to do more work.

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Originally Posted by MeoTwister5

Was she right or wrong? The most striking line in their entire conversation was her own admission that she had been doing things she's hated for years, and it's these things she hated that kept her working to bring up Ohana. A simple xplanation should suffice, that she indeed continued with a job she hated just to raise her daughter. It put food on the table, kept a roof on their heads, and kept Ohana in school. Does it of course justify her actions? True enough she did it under the orders of her superiors, so the issue itself becomes one of personal ethics over economic reality. In a way, one could deduce that she had sacrificed any sort of principle she had because she had to follow her bosses, who clearly have a vested interest in this.

If you ask me, it does not justify her actions. She may have continued a job she hated, but the simple fact she left Ohana on her own to elope with a guy she left pretty quickly shows how little she cared for Ohana, if at all. To me, this shows she was doing the job more for her own sake than her daughter's. While one could understand why she chose to work for a bad company (with unemployment so rampant these days, who can blame anyone), it does not justify how she raised Ohana, nor does it justify how she would simply do whatever she can to survive and turn a blind eye on the consequences this holds on others, and not just her daughter. To me, that says she's a weak character and uncaring for other people in general.

On that note, I must agree with Irisiel completely. Satsuki took a huge gamble here, and not just Satsuki herself, but another employee at the magazine admitted that Satsuki did indeed write the article, even writing her name on paper. If word got out, the consequences this would have on Satsuki are quite big and her reputation as a critic would be shattered. On the argument of professionalism, as I said in the episode thread, being professional means knowing what you're doing and what your job entails. Her duty may be to follow instructions given to her by her superiors, but obedience without question is more like working like a machine than a person. To me, that doesn't sound like professionalism.

Critics and journalists aren't all that different because both professions rely on readership trust. If you can't trust the author, that's an indication that the author isn't being professional, and Satsuki certainly isn't professional when her review is based on lies, particularly when she doesn't actually know a thing about what she's reviewing (even worse is that she may know a thing or two about Kissuiso, being the daughter of the manager, so there's the chance she has been there before and still wrote a fictitious review because her bosses told her to). She may believe now that this is what must be done to survive in the world today, but if word of her lies gets out and her bosses let her go to save face, I wonder if she will make a stand for the fact that she did everything they told her to and they let her go so easily, or if she'll just accept it and try moving to another job even after her reputation is ruined. If the latter, then there's really no such thing as redemption for her.

I call it a very cynical and "catch as catch can" view of the world. If there's something I can see from her, it's not that she doesn't know right or wrong, it's more like she chooses to ignore them for whatever reasons she has. She doesn't seem to care whether her readership trusts her or not now does she seem to care about the concept of professionalism. She's operating on a particularly different set of ethics than everyone else and doesn't bother to explain it to anyone, even her own daughter. Coupled in with how this probably extends to her free-wheeling living, she's doing what she wants for her own reasons.

I call it a very cynical and "catch as catch can" view of the world. If there's something I can see from her, it's not that she doesn't know right or wrong, it's more like she chooses to ignore them for whatever reasons she has. She doesn't seem to care whether her readership trusts her or not now does she seem to care about the concept of professionalism. She's operating on a particularly different set of ethics than everyone else and doesn't bother to explain it to anyone, even her own daughter. Coupled in with how this probably extends to her free-wheeling living, she's doing what she wants for her own reasons.

I do wonder what her reasons are, but either way, if she keeps this going, it'll eventually catch up to her in ugly ways. Her uncaring attittude might risk her job and future chances of employment, and she might even end up waiting tables for a living, and I'm sure her granma won't be the one employing her One thing I'm sure of is that she's not the best person to get life lessons from, and Ohana probably knows that by now. Even in a world where unemployment almost forces you to work in places you'd rather not, you should still be mindful of the consequences this bears on your family and people around you.

I'll hold my overall opinion on Satsuki. Need to see more reasons why she treats Ohana the way she does. However, when Ohana left the restaurant and Satsuki asked for another drink did upset me. Very interested in Satsuki's back story.

as I said in the episode thread, being professional means knowing what you're doing and what your job entails. Her duty may be to follow instructions given to her by her superiors, but obedience without question is more like working like a machine than a person. To me, that doesn't sound like professionalism.

I spoke extensively on the subject of professionalism, so there is no point in rehashing them. But I just want to say a few words on the optimistic attitude expressed above.

Employees today are treated like machines. Bosses care about their bottom line, not our feelings or thoughts. We are a professional because we are getting paid for doing our job; We won't be a professional when we are waiting tables and living in our parents' basement. That's what separate a professional from a non-professional. Not whether we hold onto some lofty ideals and thinking that we are a special individual and should be valued.

When you are evaluated for promotions and raises, I bet that every bosses will look at how you have performed your job, not how you are as a "human being." Sure, they might talk about how well you are getting along with co-workers. But what they care about is whether you can function as a reliable teammate to increase corporate profits, not how you are as a "person."

Making your profession and your job into something more than a mean to an end is a luxury. Asking others to to do the same is unwarranted. Criticizing those for not putting their job on the line for your ideals lacks compassion.

In any case, my thoughts and feelings toward Satsuki remain largely the same. As a mother, she has not done a very good job in sheltering Ohana. She has made many mistakes along the way, but none of which includes her doing her job and how she conducts herself as a professional.

I spoke extensively on the subject of professionalism, so there is no point in rehashing them. But I just want to say a few words on the optimistic attitude expressed above.

Employees today are treated like machines. Bosses care about their bottom line, not our feelings or thoughts. We are a professional because we are getting paid for doing our job; We won't be a professional when we are waiting tables and living in our parents' basement. That's what separate a professional from a non-professional. Not whether we hold onto some lofty ideals and thinking that we are a special individual and should be valued.

Though I think the others are exaggerating the risks Satsuki's running (mostly because I think people just don't care about hotel critics), a point could be made that it's not in the employee's interests to let herself be used too much. Sure, one has to be willing to play ball to some extent. But it's give and take, and credibility is a journalist's (or a critic's) stock in trade. (I'm not saying Satsuki needs as much of it as an investigative reporter covering political scandals. But all other things being equal, who would employ a critic who's been publicly discredited?)

On Satsuki as a mother: you know, it makes me curious about Ohana's early year. Clearly, Satsuki's left her alone as much as she decently could and then some from an early age. But what about when she was an infant? A toddler? They can't precisely fend for themselves. And I imagine that Satsuki didn't have that much money to throw at the problem. So what did she do?

I take back everything I ever said about Satsuki. I'd hate to be her daughter and she won't win any awards for mother of the year, but she's amazingly self-aware and perceptive. Also, she's hilarious. Such an instigator!

I think we learned a lot about Satsuki in episode 12 just from her utterance that Ohana is a lucky girl for having a mother who isn't always right about everything.

I think I turned a corner on her this episode. But I should have known there was something in her worth exploring after the "I hate you, Mommy" omelet scene

I figured so too. Her reaction wasn't flippant or angry; she seems to genuinely realize what a lackluster parent she is. (bites her lip and forces herself to eat the broccoli infested omelet.) And that's why I found her kind of interesting from the get go. Terrible parent, lack of scruples, but she seems to really enjoy life; she'd be great to go out and have a beer with, even if you'd never want to be her family for all the world. And it leads to hilarious implications that when Ohana's a grown woman, she can easily wind up being just as jaded as her.

She became my favorite character of the show after episode 11 - episode 12 just made me like her even more. Her personality is more intriguing than any other character's. She reminds me a little of a grown-up child (or a childish grown-up?) and I'm curious to see how her relationship with Sui and Ohana unfolds.